I have embarked on a journey to build a dedicated home theater room. After many discussions on the Home Theater Builder subforum on AVSForum.com, I have a final floorplan which I will use.

My first plan:

My final plan:

Lots of revisions (literally 14) between the two. The guys here were more than helpful!

I will update with pics as I do the actual work. I am starting without $1500 of seed money to buy the sound isolation items I need to both keep noise IN and well as OUT of the room and the wood, drywall, etc. The lowest sound level in a movie is 23db, which the average home background noise is 35db...so sound isolation is needed.

After that I will have to scrape money as I can until the next bonus check and income tax return arrive in 2012.

4 inch recessed ceiling lights...and the larger ones on the walls are outlets. They are mostly there to remind me I have to put in both lighting and outlets. Their exact location will be determined after the wall framing is done.

The rear seats are going to be about 11 inches higher than the front seats, to allow people to see over the heads of those in front. It will be a little tight, as the ceiling is only about 7.5 feet high once drywalled.

I will be doing two laters of dryall, staggered so the seams are not at the same place. This will be connected to clip and hat channels to decouple the drywall from the wall studs. The walls themselves (and ceiling), will be decoupled from the ceiling by angled sound reduction brackets. All joints will then be sealed with an acoustic absortion sealant.

I will use bass traps in the rear room corners and turn the rear seat riser in a large bass trap. I will use absorptive materials on the walls to prevent first point reflections from the mid to highs as well.

The room will be a Steelers themed room. This is my wife's only demand, which allowed me to get a green light.

It is going to be fun, but only since I have a friend who does commercial construction work and another who is a welder / boiler tech. Right now, the entire basement is just one big open area.

The build has now moved to the "buy stuff" stage. Once I get everything and actually start building, I will put up a new thread with lots of pics.

I have already moved my computer desk under the stairs, temporarily stringing power and ethernet over the ducting and into the space (so it does not lay on the floor), and it fits perfectly. A great use of the space. I face the steps, meaning they angle upwards towards me. The desk fits nicely under the smaller area. The area above my head while I am sitting is low, but while sitting I do not need the height at all. When I roll my chair back to stand up, I have a full height ceiling. It is a beautiful use of an awkward space.

I have already ordered my stuff from The Sound Proofing Compay. You DO save a lot when you call and talk to them. I gave them the info from here, and did a lot of study first.

Due to costs, I am going to do a room inside a room, whisper clip the ceiling, double drywall ceiling and walls using 1 tube of Green Glue per sheet, insulate everything, IB3 seperation for the walls from the ceiling, acoustic cauking for the joints, and puddy the outlets. 1 tube of GG provides 70% of the goodness of 2 tubes, while being only 50% of the cost. Had I more, I would have gone with 2 tubes...but cuts have to be made somewhere and 70% effectiveness is actually quite good.

My friend has the bed removed from his truck right now, finding his fuel line leak. Once it is back on, it is wood and drywall time.